- ✔ Part I: Plan and Conceptualize
- ✔ 1. Choose a Subject and Project
- ✔ To begin, you will need to choose two important factors of your exercise: the famous person you wish to depict (such as a pop singer, sports figure, movie star, historical figure, a major fictional character, and so on) and the type of project you will create. You have four choices of projects:
- An advertisement in a magazine for an A&E TV biography show about the person
- A poster for a movie or play starring the person or character
- ✔ A book cover for a biography on the person
- A home page of a Web site for or about the person
- ✔ Once you have selected your subject and project, make a list of 10 to 15 important facts, details, historical references, and/or visual influences regarding the chosen subject. Investigate, analyze, and drill down to seek out as much information you can. For example look at typefaces associated with the subject or field, styles of typographic layout, fashion, and use of color. This "getting to know your subject" step is essential, as it will generate a great deal of information, and your bank of information will significantly aid you in formalizing and visualizing your design solution.
- ✔ The work you submit in this assignment will test your skill in the Sessions program standard for typography. Please review the standard before you continue:
- ✔ To begin, you will need to choose two important factors of your exercise: the famous person you wish to depict (such as a pop singer, sports figure, movie star, historical figure, a major fictional character, and so on) and the type of project you will create. You have four choices of projects:
- ✔ 2. Conceptualize
- ✔ Develop a concept to guide the exercise. Think abstractly about the significance of the chosen subject. Can you summarize it in one sentence? This is probably the hardest part of the job, but when created, it will provide some valuable "hooks" on which to attach further thoughts.
- ✔ Let's say you chose the pop singer Madonna and magazine ad about her. What makes her unique? She is known for reinventing herself and style. She is adaptable in the same way a chameleon is ever-changing. How could I show that concept of adaptability?
- ✔ If you chose the character Macbeth and a poster for the play, you would need to analyze the play and then decide what important aspect you wish to express without giving too much information away. A common example is the use of a dagger instead of the letter "t" in the lettering of Macbeth, expressing and depicting a certain amount about the play without destroying the main theme of the play.
- ✔ Let's assume you chose the book cover project. The working area is small in comparison with either a full page in a magazine or a poster, but the challenge is identical. Typographically, you have to convey a message, a sophisticated visual teaser to entice a potential reader.
- ✔ Finally, let's say you decided to work with the home page of a Web site. Even though the message you will wish to convey appears more vibrant and alive, because it shines out of the screen and is possibly animated, the conceptualizing process is identical. Dig deep to find a hook that you can convert typographically that will clearly and succinctly convey the famous person effectively along with the relevant Web site type elements.
- ✔ All four projects will have something unique that you will need to express with creative typography.
- ✔ Remember, no pictorial representations! For example, if you have chosen Henry Ford, you wouldn't use a photo of his face or even an old-fashioned Model T car. The idea would be to get across the concept of motorization of wheeled-vehicles or the process of the assembly line that he developed using only type.
- ✔ 3. Make a Sketch
- ✔ The raw material for this exercise will be the letterforms (or parts of letterforms) that make up the message you wish to convey. Begin thinking about these by "drawing with type."
- ✔ The idea is not to use the computer for the early sketching process, so turn it off and go and work outdoors in the sunshine, or somewhere stimulating. Many times, the computer detracts from the early concept stage of a project and is best used to finalize the details of a visual design. You don't need a computer to design—just a hand, an eye, and a mind.
- ✔ You should work in a rectangular area of a size appropriate to the medium, no more than 8 x 10.5 inches. Consider tracing large printouts of letterforms to express the concept you developed for your chosen subject. Work on two to three solutions and then see which one works out the best before heading to the computer.
- ✔ 4. Make Your Concept Digital
- ✔ Let's open the floodgates and let the fun begin! In this phase you can choose your final, relevant typefaces as well as up to three colors to help communicate your concept. Begin work in the design software of your choice. The best tool to use would be a vector drawing application like Adobe Illustrator, but you might use an imaging program (like Photoshop) or layout tool (like InDesign) instead.
- ✔ It is very important that you keep completely focused on the concept you wish to communicate. Keep asking yourself: Does this typeface or color add anything significant to my visual solution? Does it make the communication more clear or does it confuse the issue?
- ✔ You can keep your attention in this step on just the person's name. Get your final concept down before you move on to Part II, in which you will showcase your name design in the professional context of an ad, poster, cover, or page design.
jul 15 2011 ∞
jul 19 2011 +
jul 19 2011 +